


The Games We Play

by ChatterBoxomie



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: F/M, Yomo is only mentioned, figured i might as well publish it and see if it can make someone's day, is she lying? is she serious?, very short piece that I just sat down and wrote out one day, what's really going on in the dove's mind is up to interpretation, who knows - Freeform, you'll never know - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:27:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24382792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChatterBoxomie/pseuds/ChatterBoxomie
Summary: What was taking her so long? Did she like the anticipation, too? Did betrayal taste sweeter the longer it was delayed? This was his first time playing this game, pretending to run, pretending to hide, slapping his hand over his mouth so she wouldn’t see him smile while she crept closer. Knocking on doors she passed by, one-two-three, calling out in that soft voice of hers, “Darling.”“Darling.”“Where are you…?”“I can’t see in the dark.”(“But I can,” he didn’t say aloud, grinning against the palm of his hand, bidding her to come closer. Tasting her blood on his tongue through the door separating them.)
Relationships: Uta (Tokyo Ghoul)/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 25





	The Games We Play

“I was drunk in love, but you were already sober.”

\- Nichomachus, _Playing with Fire_

“Playing with fire.”

That’s what Renji called her. The _dove_ with the green tea eyes and the sunset red hair, the foreigner with a Japanese name. _Takanashi Hagumi_. (“Little birds playing while the hawk is gone.” Fitting, he thought.)

“ _I know_ ,” he would say, like clockwork, and, like clockwork, Renji would sigh, shake his head, and change the subject. It was a dangerous game he was playing, he agreed, but like playing with fire, he couldn’t stop. Couldn’t stop looking, seeking, searching, grasping, waiting with bated breath for the burn to come. For her to open her mouth and flames to sear his face to ashes.

For her to turn her head and dig her beak into his eye when he wandered too close.

Was he waiting for it? Expecting it? Anticipating it?

He should have walked away the moment he uncovered the _dove_ behind the blank mask, but something about her gaze enticed him. Beckoned him closer. (“ _That’s right, little ghoul. Walk right into my trap_.”) Didn’t she know? Didn’t she know that he liked the agony of knowing she was setting him up, planning to betray him while pretending to know nothing, see nothing, hear nothing? Didn’t she know that the pain reminded him he was still alive?

Didn’t she know that he was standing still on purpose, fingers clasped behind his back, waiting for the blades to slip out from the confines of her coat sleeves? Didn’t she know that he was eagerly anticipating it?

What was taking her so long? Did she like the anticipation, too? Did betrayal taste sweeter the longer it was delayed? This was his first time playing this game, pretending to run, pretending to hide, slapping his hand over his mouth so she wouldn’t see him smile while she crept closer. Knocking on doors she passed by, one-two-three, calling out in that soft voice of hers, “ _Darling_.”

“ _Darling_.”

“ _Where are you_ …?”

“ _I can’t see in the dark_.”

(“ _But I can_ ,” he didn’t say aloud, grinning against the palm of his hand, bidding her to come closer. Tasting her blood on his tongue through the door separating them.)

“Uta.” She always had such perfect timing, he found, and had to physically wrest the grin from his lips. Affecting at being too focused on his work to have noticed her entrance, he listened to the near-soundless tap-tap-tapping of the heels of her boots against the linoleum of the flooring of his shop, and only lifted his head from the designs sitting aimlessly on his desk when she took a seat on the stool beside him. Lacing her fingers and stretching them out over her head with a drawn-out sigh. “Still working, huh? You’re a pretty tough boss.”

“Am I?” His eyes traced over the flattering shift of her coat against her lithe form, and he felt a familiar hunger begin to dig its teeth into his bones. “In comparison to who?”

“Mine, obviously.” She reached into the bag she’d brought with her (not her suitcase, he was dismayed to see), pulling out a bento box that reeked of the days’-old corpse of a trampled rat, and began to dig around in her coat pocket for a pair of chopsticks. The same ones she always forgot at home, like clockwork. “Shit.” Realizing her age-old mistake, she sighed, and opened her mouth to ask him the same question she always did.

“By any chance, you wouldn’t happen to have…?”

He’d reached into the drawer of his desk and pulled out one of the spares before she’d even finished. One of the many pairs of chopsticks he’d begun to keep around his shop, home, and even in his pockets. If she was going to play the game so well, it was only fair that he played along. Laughing to himself as she circled him in the darkness and playing it off as nerves.

(“ _This is my first time_ ,” he hadn’t lied, and she’d looked at him for a moment too long, as if she didn’t quite believe him.

“ _Really_?”

“ _Mhm_ ,” he’d hummed, burying his nose into the space between her collarbone and her shoulder. Trying hard not to salivate at the smell of her blood coursing through her veins. “ _I love you_.”

Grinning when she’d lied, in the same soft voice she always spoke, “ _I love you, too_.”

_Lie to me, again_ , he’d not said aloud. _Your voice is sweetest when you lie, darling_.)

“I’m sorry,” she said, with a sheepish smile that contradicted the gratitude in her eyes, the gentle affection of the reaper for her favorite toy, and he might have thought she was beginning to regret the game they were playing if he hadn’t witnessed her cruelty with his own two eyes.

If he didn’t know that she wasn’t _capable_ of feeling regret.

“I don’t mind,” was his response, practiced, and when he shifted, laying his hand against her thigh, testing her impulse, her reflex (always so impressed that she could manage to keep the disgust out of her gaze), she didn’t recoil, so it was easy, always easy, to steal a kiss from her.

Dedicated to the game, his _dove_ was. Or, maybe, was she just as addicted to the thrill of the chase as he was? Did she feel like she was playing with fire, too?

Did she like the threat of being burned, too?

“You’ve been here all day, haven’t you?” She crossed her ankles, and he leaned back, pretending to re-focus his attentions on his work. “I think you might be a workaholic.”

“Coming from you, that’s really something,” he said, softly, feeling like every word exchanged between them existed on borrowed time. Feeling like he had to whisper to her to keep her superiors from overhearing, from suspecting that she might be enjoying playing with him too much to end the game. He didn’t want her to ever stop – the harder she pressed the glass into his skin with her gentle fingers, the tighter his grip on her wrist became, keeping her in place. Coaxing her into doing it again, _harder_ , _deeper_ , _more_ , _more_ , _more_.

“Believe it or not, I’m actually not the hardest-working person I know.” She lifted a ball of rice to her mouth and bit into it, and his eyes couldn’t stop watching as she chewed, wondering if that was how she was planning on devouring his heart when she grew bored of him. With such tender bites. Did she want him to return the favor, if he caught her, first?

“There’s someone who works harder than _Hagu-chan_?” He leaned in, again, pressing his lips to her own despite the awful taste of the rice on her breath. “I don’t know if I believe you.”

“Really?” Her brow furrowed, and he found the expression was one of her more charming ones. (Which ones weren’t, he wondered?) “I guess I somehow convinced you that I’m not lazy.”

“You’re not,” he pointed out, watching her jaw work as she chewed on another mouthful of rice. “You just don’t like your job.” This was the act she was putting on for him, after all. _Reluctant dove_. He liked the originality, liked the creative process of her mind, liked how much work she put into the mask she wore for him. Not many _doves_ pretended to be disgusted by their work.

_Nervous_ , yes. But never disgusted. Weren’t they all in the right, after all? Weren’t all ghouls monsters who deserved to be put down like rabid dogs? Weren’t they all just predators pretending to be prey?

“Which means I’m not the hardest-working person I know,” she countered, and the triumph on her face, outplaying him in their game of words, was so endearing that he found himself stealing another kiss from her lips, ignoring the taste of the rice as he wrapped his tongue around her own, coaxing her into re-considering her choice of seat and grinning against her mouth when she took the hint, sliding onto his lap, instead.

“Uta,” she said, when he at last allowed her to catch her breath. Running his fingers along the length of her spine and wondering what it would feel like to dig his nails into her skin and tear it out. “You’re awfully affectionate today. Are you alright?”

“I love you,” he reminded her of the lie shared between them. “I was thinking about you, so I can’t help it if I’m a little excited.” He took the skin of her throat between his teeth and daydreamed about breaking through it. Daydreamed about the taste of her blood against his tongue. Wondered if it’d be sweet, like he’d always imagined, or bitter. Salty. “Thank you for coming to see me.”

“Ah,” she said, like it wasn’t horrifying in the least to have a ghoul nipping at her veins. Salivating at the thought of devouring her whole. “I don’t think I can keep up with you today.”

“Did they tire you out?” He peered up into her face, widening his eyes for effect, hoping she might give him some hint of trepidation, fear, concern. Hoping the mask might finally break at the sight of the monster in his gaze. “Would you like me to stop?”

“I…” She paused, peering down into his face, expression unreadable, betraying nothing of her own humanity at the sight of a ghoul’s eyes, and he suspected, a thousandth time, that her mask was stitched to the skin of her face. That no amount of tugging would ever tear it off. “No.”

“No?”

“It’s… it’s been a while, hasn’t it?” She looked almost embarrassed, sheepish, again, apologetic, and he rose up to meet her lips with his own, glad to feel her lips twist into a smile against his own. Excited by the sound of her laughter, pressing a kiss against her chin, the hollow of her throat, her cheek, egged on by and egging on the honeyed laughter spilling from her lips like feathers. “Uta, _really_ , I don’t want to make a mess of this rice…! Let me put it down…!”

His fingers closed around the box and set it aside, carefully, onto his desk. “There. No mess.” For a moment, he was content to leave it at that, pressing kiss after kiss after kiss to every inch of exposed skin he could find. Then, with a grin she pretended to misunderstand, he added, “yet.”

“Pervert,” she said, half-heartedly, insincerely, and he reached up to free her curls from the cute little pig’s tail she had them trapped in. “Well, maybe you’re walking right into my trap and don’t even realize it. Have you ever thought of that?”

“Oh?” His heart picked up, thump-thump-thumping hard against his ribs, and he met her eyes, once more, hoping to give her a clear enough opening. Hoping she’d get a good hit in before his instincts kicked in. Before he made a bigger mess of her than he’d been intending to. “And what if I want to walk into your trap?”

“I would hope so,” she poked her index finger into his chest, and when her lips curled into another of her smiles, playful, insincere, he realized she didn’t mean what he’d assumed. (Wondered why he didn’t feel disappointed to know it. Did he really get such a kick out of her game?) “I know how hard it is to pull you away from your work, so if this is the only way I can get you to clock out…”

“Are you worried about me?” He caught her finger in his hand before she could pull it away and pressed a kiss to the nail. ( _Neat and clean_. Just like everything else about her. Building a hunger in him he couldn’t deny. Wanting to see what it was like when she made a mess, when she wasn’t so well-put-together. When she was anything other than “perfect.”)

“I always am.” The words startled him. Not because she hadn’t said something similar before – her game was the best one he’d ever played, after all – but because there was something different about them. Something raw.

( ** _Sincere_**?)

“I worry about you, too,” he said, and she snorted with laughter. Disbelieving. A lie laid on too thick for her to pretend to believe him. (Even if he half-meant it. What good was her game if she died by anyone else’s hands but his?) “I do.” He touched his fingers to her cheek, the slope of her nose, the curve of her lips. “You don’t believe me?”

“It’s hard to believe _anything_ you say when you always talk in the same tone of voice,” was her response, not unkind, a laugh still on her breath when he stole it from her.

“Words are cheap,” his voice was soft, again. Tender, like the way she chewed her food. “Why don’t I _show_ you, instead?” He was pleased by the flush of her face when she understood his meaning, and moreso when she averted her gaze, knowing that he’d won their little round of trading lies. “What’s wrong? Did I make you nervous?”

He couldn’t help gloating, and she was a graceful loser. Rather than becoming angry with him, never so much as raising her voice at him, she pressed the tip of her index finger against the curve of his nose. Brow furrowed in a false pout.

“I don’t think you understand how attractive you are to me, Uta.”

“If you find me half as appealing as I do you, then I understand completely.” He parted his lips to welcome her finger into his mouth and told himself not to bite down as he touched his tongue playfully to it. “You taste good.”

“Have I ever mentioned how strange you are?” was her clever response, though her breath hitched in a telling enough manner when his fingers crept further up her thigh. “ _Uta_ …! Not in your shop…! Have some restraint – ”

“I’m sorry,” he said, insincere, and shifted against her, allowing her to get up to her feet only to pull her back into himself once he’d followed her out of his seat. “You look so good in that coat. It’s really hard not to tear it off…”

Again, she pressed her fingertip to his lips. “You’d better get used to it, then. You can hardly react like this when we’re in public. I would never be able to live down the embarrassment if my boyfriend started flirting with me in front of my coworkers.”

“What if I only flirted with you a little?”

“Well,” she pretended to give it some thought, and he hoped to encourage her to answer in the affirmative by nipping at her fingertip. Lightly, careful not to draw blood, not to ruin his own fun by tasting her blood prematurely. “Okay. Fine. But only a little. None of this _groping_ business, mister.”

“I guess I should get all the groping out of the way, then.” His fingers wandered lower and he knew he’d found his mark when she jumped, face flushing even as she burst into giggles. “Are you sure you don’t want me to grope you in public? You seem to like it when I do.”

She slapped the palm of her hand against his bare shoulder, lightly, playfully, insincerely.

“Take me upstairs, you pig.”

“Sure thing, darling.”

It was only when he’d been laying beside her for five minutes, ten, listening to her breath evening out, slowly, that he recalled what she’d said. “Boyfriend,” he murmured, thumb rubbing circles into the knuckle of her index finger.

Her eyes betrayed her lack of understanding, but only for a moment. Then, her jaw worked a little, and she asked, in a voice that was almost a whisper, “Is that okay? I thought it was too dramatic to call you my lover.”

“I like it,” was his response, sincere, and she shifted so she could see him better. Peering up at him from her place against his shoulder. “Can I call you my girlfriend, then?”

He always expected her to burst into laughter, to break character, whenever he was kind to her. Whenever he was sweet with her. But, just like every other time before, she didn’t.

She smiled, lips curling sweetly, and pressed a tender kiss to the back of his hand.

“Of course.”

His little _dove_ was so dedicated to her game.

And he was beginning to suspect he was the only one playing one.

**Author's Note:**

> Like I said in the tags, this was just a small piece I churned out in a single evening. I don't know - I like it, and I would have continued it if I didn't think that would ruin the story, you know?
> 
> I think ending it where I did - with a mystery still churning - fit Uta's character just right. I think a part of him definitely doesn't want to know the truth, and another part of him enjoys the so-called "game" they're playing. You have to wonder - does she even think he's a ghoul? lmao 
> 
> In any case, I hope you guys enjoyed! I'm slowly getting back to writing more and more often, so we'll see if I can't publish a few more pieces to get back into the groove of things. No promises, though. (You know me - a stray never stays.)


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